


The Disguise

by akane42me



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-27
Updated: 2011-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-25 00:25:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akane42me/pseuds/akane42me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A Halloween story.  Written in 2009.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Disguise

**Author's Note:**

> A Halloween story. Written in 2009.

**The Disguise**

 

He waited longer than he’d anticipated, his uncertainty growing.  He repeated to himself, “He’s probably getting back this morning,” and fortified his resolve by rehearsing his plan, remembering the need for patience.  He spotted a man walking a few blocks away.  Hope fluttered in his chest as he ducked on the stairs in front of the man’s apartment building, crouching in the shelter of the brownstone half-wall, his weapon drawn in anticipation.  

Wait, he thought.  What if he was wrong?  He could not risk shooting the wrong person.  Big trouble.  He risked a peek above the half-wall.  He caught a hint of a telltale mannerism, a slight hitch every so often in the man’s step.  He shivered from a little thrill of excitement.  The man continued his approach.  Now the morning sunlight shining between the apartment buildings shimmered off the man's blond hair, removing all doubt.  Good.  The scabs on his knees were beginning to hurt.  He shifted slightly on the concrete stairs, but only enough to ease the pressure, never taking his eyes from the man. He patiently waited, his breath steady, and when his prey was nearly upon him, so that he could hear the pavement crunch beneath the man’s shoes, he sprang to his feet.  He thrust his sister’s Barbie doll at Illya Kuryakin’s chest and shouted “Bang!” 

Illya’s eyes popped wide.   With a guttural cry of pain, he clutched at his chest.  He spun halfway around and fell to his knees. The boy calmly sighted through the valley between the naked Barbie’s breasts and shot Illya in the back.  

“Bang!”

Illya struggled to his feet and staggered to sit next to the boy on the steps.

“Please have your mother call an ambulance.  I have been shot.”  He put his arm around the boy’s bony shoulders and with a lightning move, snatched the doll with one hand and clamped the boy’s wrists together with the other.

"Have her call the police as well, because I have apprehended the assailant.” 

The little boy looked up at Illya and giggled.  He grinned, revealing a gap created by the absence of his two top front teeth.  He screwed his face into a question mark and said, “Whaaat?” 

Illya caught a whiff of milk and toast, of peanut butter and jelly.  These Americans, such rubbish they substituted for meals. 

He had to admit, however, to a fondness for a midnight snack of peanut butter and jelly spread upon crackers - especially the round ones oddly named for the Ritz hotel.  He thought of the contrast of sweet and salt on the tongue, the simultaneous sensations of smooth and crunch, a simple pleasure.  I’m definitely tired and hungry, Illya thought, amused at his woolgathering.  He turned his attention back to the boy.

The boy, whose name was Francis, but was called Frankie, looked different today.  Normally Frankie wore striped t-shirts, faded blue jeans cuffed at the bottoms, and black cloth high-top sneakers with white rubber soles and a red rubber circle emblazoned on the outer ankles.  Red Ball Jets, Frankie proudly pronounced on the first day he’d worn them in September, his new shoes for school.  

Today Frankie wore a white shirt with a black tie, under a black jacket with matching black slacks, finished off with black socks and black leather shoes.  

“You look handsome today, Frankie.  Picture day at school?”

Frankie giggled again.  “Mr. K!  You’re funny!  It’s Saturday!  Everybody knows that!”

Unless you’ve spent the last seventy-two hours in another country,  stealing rides, stealing secrets, and stealing forty winks in the grunt-end of a military cargo plane flying under the radar.    Nodding, Illya said, “Of course it is Saturday.  So why are you dressed that way?”

This time, a hoot from Frankie.  “Mr. K!  Today is Halloween!  This is my disguise!  Mom said I could wear it all day!  I couldn’t wait to show you!”

Illya narrowed his eyes and re-examined Frankie’s attire.  “Ah.  A disguise.  I see.”  But he didn’t see.  He bent to Frankie’s ear and whispered, “What are you disguised as?”

Now it was Frankie’s turn at a quizzical expression.  “I’m a, um,” He screwed his mouth in a doubtful pinch and slowly cast his gaze up and down Illya.  “Well,” he said uncertainly, “I don’t exactly know what you call it.” 

 Illya offered, “A businessman?”  He immediately regretted the suggestion, because Frankie’s face went flat.

“Are you a salesman?”

Frankie frowned.  “Aww.  I thought you’d guess it on the first try!”

The front door to the apartment next door swung open.  Frankie’s mother stepped outside.    

“Frankie.  There you are.” She looked from Frankie’s frowning face to Illya’s troubled one.  “Are you pestering Mr. K?  I warned you, mister!  You’re going to be grounded from trick-or-treating, and I mean it.”

“Aw, Mom.”

“Scooby Doo’s on.  Scoot.”

Frankie scooted up the steps and turned at the door.

“See you later, Mr. K.”

“See you later, Frankie.”  Trick-or-treating.  He needed to purchase some treats, top priority, before eating or sleeping, and winced at the thought.  “What time does trick-or-treating begin?” he asked.

Frankie’s mother sat on the steps next to Illya and smoothed her hands across her knees.

“Not until dark. God, it’s going to be a long day." She sighed. "I shouldn’t have told him that you mentioned you might be back this morning.  I told him not to hang around outside all morning watching for you, but he was so excited about impressing you with his Halloween costume.” 

Illya hesitated.  “I think I disappointed him.  Perhaps the addition of a sample case would help.”

“A sample case?” 

“For his salesman disguise.”

Frankie’s mother sighed.  “Oh, Illya.  You can be so obtuse sometimes.”

“I don’t understand.  I didn’t mean to offend you. Or insult Frankie.”

"He wants to be like you.  He’s dressed up as you.”

“Me?  He’s dressed up as me?”  

“Yes, he’s an IBM analyst, like you.”

“Like me?”

“Stop repeating everything I say.  Surely you know he adores you.”

Illya thought of little boys with big imaginations, and of television.  And he thought of the wind blowing his jacket open one day last spring when Frankie was playing on the steps. He thought of the Barbie doll in Frankie’s hand, and the shooting.   

He thought of innocent eyes seeing what is hidden in plain sight, things grownups, busy in their workaday lives, do not recognize.    

 “Ah.  I see. I’m very sorry.  Please, tell Frankie I’m sorry.  Please tell him.”   

“That’s okay, Illya. You can stop in this afternoon and tell him yourself.  I have some pumpkin pie for waiting for you.”

****

He did not stop in for the pie.  When Frankie rang his doorbell for trick-or-treats, there was no answer.  

In the morning, the Barbie doll lay on Frankie’s doorstep.  Frankie raced upstairs to Mr. K’s door.  It was open a crack.  That wasn’t right.  Frankie pushed the door open and peered inside.  Mr. K wasn’t there.  His things were gone, and so was he.  

Frankie watched and waited.  For a year, he scanned the long blocks on either side of his building each time he went outside.  Sometimes he crouched in the shadow of the brownstone half-wall, thinking a distant black-clad form coming this way was the one, but it never was. 

 Eventually, he became less vigilant, preoccupied with school and in spring, with baseball.  Summer brought his birthday and a new bicycle, and as he made his way around the block, new friends, new interests.   

One thing remained the same.  At Halloween, the next year, he again dressed as his favorite hero.

Batman.  

  
The End


End file.
